farm subsidies Archive

On September 8th Congress voted for relief for Americans impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Several callous members voted no, citing their conservative ideology, even though they’ve embraced federal dollars flowing to their districts before. As the Kansas City Star editorial board noted when raining hot fire on their local nays: “And the hypocrisy. Let us...

Today the Senate Agriculture Committee is holding a hearing on fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — better known as food stamps. The hearing is at the behest of Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS). According to Bloomberg News, Roberts is using the hearing as a beachhead for a larger plan...

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack remains wisely unswayed by House Agriculture Committee pleas to reclassify cottonseeds. According to the cotton industry, low prices and loss of acreage have put American cotton farmers in a tough spot. They believe salvation lies with the reclassification, which would allow $1 billion more a year in...

Marco Rubio’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is doing well enough in Iowa that he recently announced an agriculture leadership team to bolster his corn cred. Both Jeb! Bush and the failed Scott Walker campaigns announced ag teams this summer. Rubio’s ream of 24 agriculture leader endorsements comes after Iowa consternation regarding his...

Wednesday’s handshake agreement to possibly stave off cuts to subsidies to insurance companies for administering the crop insurance program was a master class in how to defend federal turf. Food movement types would do well to study and start to replicate the conventional agriculture sector’s response. It was a wonder to behold. While it’s...

Let’s assume the nascent “good food” movement had its collective shit together enough to coalesce and organize into a coherent political force like the farm lobby. The Club for Growth has famously hamstrung conservative politicians with its tax pledge and its not out of the question to think someday the food movement could exercise...

On Friday August 6th, the Republic of Awesome published a rundown of federal farm subsidies paid to presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s Iowa “Farm Team.” Jeb’s team pulled in an impressive $9.2 million. The piece also looked at the implications of cozying up to the highly subsidized in a Republican primary field where being a...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush announced his “Iowa Farm Team,” on Wednesday, July 30th. As reported by the Iowa Quad City Times’ Ed Tibbets: Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush on Thursday announced the endorsements of several farmers and other agriculture professions in Iowa. The campaign said the former Florida governor’s “Iowa Farm Team” would...

You may have noticed that the price of eggs has gone up. That’s partially due to the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza epidemic that decimated poultry farms across 15 U.S. states this spring. The death toll from the flu and culling has surged to over 48 million birds. The bulk were egg-laying hens, many concentrated in massive...